Franklin Einspruch

Nancy Gifford haunts British bookstores in search of sets of antiquarian titles, which supply her with covers she arranges into handsome geometric compositions. Leather, marbling, and worn paper lend the works an air of studious concentration even as they play in the fields of abstract design. In Geo she tiles mustard-yellow book covers in a pattern of ascending staircases. In The Arrow That Cannot Be Removed, crimson double-headed arrows formed by spines and corners point left and right in a zippy, saturated composition that nevertheless retains its bibliophilistic atmosphere. Testament of Beauty, even with its gold-embossed lettering, recalls recently departed Agnes Martin with its pale, nuanced grid.